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Lessons from a community based interdisciplinary learning exposure: benefits for both students and communities in Uganda

BACKGROUND: Makerere University implemented a One Health Institute (OHI) in 2016 involving undergraduate students selected from different disciplines. The students were first taken through theoretical principles of One Health followed by a field attachment in communities. The field attachment aimed...

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Autores principales: Buregyeya, Esther, Atusingwize, Edwinah, Nsamba, Peninah, Nalwadda, Christine, Osuret, Jimmy, Kalibala, Patrick, Nuwamanya, Ronald, Okech, Samuel, Ssekamatte, Tonny, Nitumusiima, Sarah, Wakabi, Timothy, Bikaako, Winnie, Yawe, Agnes, Naigaga, Irene, Kagarama, Juvenal, Kabasa, John David, Bazeyo, William
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7784318/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33397353
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12909-020-02429-2
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author Buregyeya, Esther
Atusingwize, Edwinah
Nsamba, Peninah
Nalwadda, Christine
Osuret, Jimmy
Kalibala, Patrick
Nuwamanya, Ronald
Okech, Samuel
Ssekamatte, Tonny
Nitumusiima, Sarah
Wakabi, Timothy
Bikaako, Winnie
Yawe, Agnes
Naigaga, Irene
Kagarama, Juvenal
Kabasa, John David
Bazeyo, William
author_facet Buregyeya, Esther
Atusingwize, Edwinah
Nsamba, Peninah
Nalwadda, Christine
Osuret, Jimmy
Kalibala, Patrick
Nuwamanya, Ronald
Okech, Samuel
Ssekamatte, Tonny
Nitumusiima, Sarah
Wakabi, Timothy
Bikaako, Winnie
Yawe, Agnes
Naigaga, Irene
Kagarama, Juvenal
Kabasa, John David
Bazeyo, William
author_sort Buregyeya, Esther
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Makerere University implemented a One Health Institute (OHI) in 2016 involving undergraduate students selected from different disciplines. The students were first taken through theoretical principles of One Health followed by a field attachment in communities. The field attachment aimed to expose students to experiential educational opportunities in the communities in a One Health approach. In this paper, we present students’ experiences and their contributions to the communities of attachment. METHODS: This was a cross-sectional study, utilizing qualitative data collection methods. The study involved students who participated in the OHI field attachment and community members in a One Health demonstration site-Western Uganda. Four focus group discussions (FGDs) and four in-depths interviews (IDIs) were conducted among the students, while four FGDs and twelve IDIs were conducted among community members. All interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed and analysed manually. RESULTS: The four themes that emerged are: students’ understanding and appreciation of One Health concept, their experiences and gains from the multi-disciplinary field attachment, students’ contributions to the community, and challenges faced by the students. Students had good knowledge of One Health. They appreciated that health cannot be achieved by one discipline or sector and thus the need to collaborate across sectors. Regarding experiences and gains during the multi-disciplinary field attachment, the students appreciated that each discipline had a role to play in achieving health in the community. They appreciated the training citing skills gained in communication, team work and collaboration. They also reported a feeling of gratitude and accomplishment because they felt they made a positive change to the community by putting in place interventions to address some of the community challenges. Similarly, the communities appreciated the students’ contribution in solving their health challenges, ranging from conducting health education to improving sanitation and hygiene. CONCLUSIONS: Through the OHI, students gained One Health competencies including communication, teamwork, and collaboration. Adopting an interdisciplinary model in university teaching system especially during field placement would strengthen skills of collaboration, team work and communication which are critical for a multi-disciplinary approach which is needed among the future workforce in order to solve the current health challenges.
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spelling pubmed-77843182021-01-14 Lessons from a community based interdisciplinary learning exposure: benefits for both students and communities in Uganda Buregyeya, Esther Atusingwize, Edwinah Nsamba, Peninah Nalwadda, Christine Osuret, Jimmy Kalibala, Patrick Nuwamanya, Ronald Okech, Samuel Ssekamatte, Tonny Nitumusiima, Sarah Wakabi, Timothy Bikaako, Winnie Yawe, Agnes Naigaga, Irene Kagarama, Juvenal Kabasa, John David Bazeyo, William BMC Med Educ Research Article BACKGROUND: Makerere University implemented a One Health Institute (OHI) in 2016 involving undergraduate students selected from different disciplines. The students were first taken through theoretical principles of One Health followed by a field attachment in communities. The field attachment aimed to expose students to experiential educational opportunities in the communities in a One Health approach. In this paper, we present students’ experiences and their contributions to the communities of attachment. METHODS: This was a cross-sectional study, utilizing qualitative data collection methods. The study involved students who participated in the OHI field attachment and community members in a One Health demonstration site-Western Uganda. Four focus group discussions (FGDs) and four in-depths interviews (IDIs) were conducted among the students, while four FGDs and twelve IDIs were conducted among community members. All interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed and analysed manually. RESULTS: The four themes that emerged are: students’ understanding and appreciation of One Health concept, their experiences and gains from the multi-disciplinary field attachment, students’ contributions to the community, and challenges faced by the students. Students had good knowledge of One Health. They appreciated that health cannot be achieved by one discipline or sector and thus the need to collaborate across sectors. Regarding experiences and gains during the multi-disciplinary field attachment, the students appreciated that each discipline had a role to play in achieving health in the community. They appreciated the training citing skills gained in communication, team work and collaboration. They also reported a feeling of gratitude and accomplishment because they felt they made a positive change to the community by putting in place interventions to address some of the community challenges. Similarly, the communities appreciated the students’ contribution in solving their health challenges, ranging from conducting health education to improving sanitation and hygiene. CONCLUSIONS: Through the OHI, students gained One Health competencies including communication, teamwork, and collaboration. Adopting an interdisciplinary model in university teaching system especially during field placement would strengthen skills of collaboration, team work and communication which are critical for a multi-disciplinary approach which is needed among the future workforce in order to solve the current health challenges. BioMed Central 2021-01-04 /pmc/articles/PMC7784318/ /pubmed/33397353 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12909-020-02429-2 Text en © The Author(s) 2021 Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
spellingShingle Research Article
Buregyeya, Esther
Atusingwize, Edwinah
Nsamba, Peninah
Nalwadda, Christine
Osuret, Jimmy
Kalibala, Patrick
Nuwamanya, Ronald
Okech, Samuel
Ssekamatte, Tonny
Nitumusiima, Sarah
Wakabi, Timothy
Bikaako, Winnie
Yawe, Agnes
Naigaga, Irene
Kagarama, Juvenal
Kabasa, John David
Bazeyo, William
Lessons from a community based interdisciplinary learning exposure: benefits for both students and communities in Uganda
title Lessons from a community based interdisciplinary learning exposure: benefits for both students and communities in Uganda
title_full Lessons from a community based interdisciplinary learning exposure: benefits for both students and communities in Uganda
title_fullStr Lessons from a community based interdisciplinary learning exposure: benefits for both students and communities in Uganda
title_full_unstemmed Lessons from a community based interdisciplinary learning exposure: benefits for both students and communities in Uganda
title_short Lessons from a community based interdisciplinary learning exposure: benefits for both students and communities in Uganda
title_sort lessons from a community based interdisciplinary learning exposure: benefits for both students and communities in uganda
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7784318/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33397353
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12909-020-02429-2
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